OMB

Because this is the Public Diplomacy Council, and because we believe public diplomacy works, we should speak up when there is a danger of damage to America’s public diplomacy.

Speaking up is even more appropriate when American diplomacy in general seems to be most in need of all its strengths and tools. I mean, would you cut off the water while the firefighters are dealing with a burning building? Would you take arms away from soldiers in the midst of a battle?

But that’s what someone seems to be doing to the diplomats at the State Department. Just at the moment when America is bringing the troops home, when Vladimir Putin is challenging us as no one has since 1939, and when the United States needs friends and partners more than ever before, the State Department proposes a 30.5 million dollar cut in the Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange program.

Brian E. Carlson

Board member

Summary: An experienced public diplomacy officer, Ambassador Brian Carlson advises the InterMedia research organization on military and foreign affairs issues and serves the State Department as a senior inspector. For the last three years he was the State Department liaison to the Department of Defense on strategic communication.

Tara Sonenshine was confirmed Thursday night by the Senate, and she will probably take office officially early this week. (She can be sworn in privately by some current official and begin work, even as a more formal ceremony is planned for a few weeks hence.)

Brian E. Carlson

Board member

Summary: An experienced public diplomacy officer, Ambassador Brian Carlson advises the InterMedia research organization on military and foreign affairs issues and serves the State Department as a senior inspector. For the last three years he was the State Department liaison to the Department of Defense on strategic communication.

In a move that Walter Pincus reads as continuing distrust of military involvement in America's international communication efforts, the House Appropriations Committee has voted to cut about $125 million from the requested $300 million Military Information Support Operations item in the 2012 Defense Appropriations bill. (This item was just posted this morning, so it was not in the Washington Post on your doorstep.)

Brian E. Carlson

Board member

Summary: An experienced public diplomacy officer, Ambassador Brian Carlson advises the InterMedia research organization on military and foreign affairs issues and serves the State Department as a senior inspector. For the last three years he was the State Department liaison to the Department of Defense on strategic communication.